Global technology companies are stepping up together to challenge the dominance of PhonePe and Google Pay in India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), taking their concerns directly to the country’s payments regulator.
It is reported that representatives from Amazon Pay, WhatsApp (owned by Meta), CRED, MobiKwik, and Flipkart’s Super.money will meet the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), which operates UPI. Amazon and Meta are among the key players driving this initiative.
According to NPCI data, in March, PhonePe and Google Pay together handled nearly 80% of the 22.6 billion UPI transactions. PhonePe recently reported over 700 million registered users and 50 million merchants, with acceptance across more than 98% of India’s postal codes, an scale that smaller competitors argue is extremely difficult to match.
Documents reviewed by a news source indicate that the discussion will focus on three main areas: user acquisition practices, product design, and monetization within the UPI framework. Specific proposals include curbs on how dominant platforms onboard users and leverage contact data, equitable access to features like autopay and payment mandates, and regulatory support or incentives for emerging players.
This push comes over a year after India postponed plans to cap any single UPI app’s market share at 30%, extending the deadline to December 31, 2026. The delay has effectively allowed PhonePe and Google Pay to further strengthen their positions. The NPCI, operating under the oversight of the Reserve Bank of India, has faced ongoing challenges in addressing market concentration without disrupting a system relied upon by hundreds of millions of users.
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